


Cherries & Other Intoxicating Things

by andchaos



Series: Blood Sisters [1]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: F/F, Fem!Dennis, Fem!Mac, Gender or Sex Swap, Genderbend, Grinding, High School, Making Out, Recreational Drug Use, Rule 63, Teenagers, literally just getting jealous and making out. a lot.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-03 05:22:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13334355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: Mac and Dennis aren't into each other. Mac just needs lessons on how to kiss boys, and Dennis just wants to make sure her best friend is maximizing her potential.It's the teenage lesbian AU you didn't know you needed.





	1. smoke in your mouth, and me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *this chapter is adapted & expanded from the lesbian AU in my first always sunny fic*
> 
> [catch me on tumblr to talk about macdennis, and girls xo](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/169598242401)

Mac watches Dennis when she talks sometimes, the shape of her lips around the words she’s forming, and she thinks idly about the things Dennis says to boys to get them into her skirt.

Mac isn’t even sure _why_ she gets so weirdly messed up every time Dennis tells her about going on dates, or kissing whoever behind the gym during fifth period, but every time Mac thinks about it, she gets a thick knot in the pit of her stomach and she tends to throw anything she’s holding. She chalks it up to confusing teenage hormones and never having come even close to doing anything sexual with a guy herself, or even really wanting to, and tries to leave it be. She really, really tries.

Dennis says that Mac has no self-restraint, and Mac will never admit it – she prefers to call it having enough self-love to grant herself instant gratification – but either way she only lasts about a week trying to leave it be, until they’re both high as shit on Mac’s new weed and Dennis is needling her about why she’s been so wound up the past few days. Apparently her panties are in so many knots that even _Dennis_ has noticed, and she’s more self-absorbed than anybody Mac knows. God.

“Stop harping about the fucking date, dude! I don’t even care about that guy. I don’t even remember his name.”

“I just feel like you won’t stop _talking_ about him –”

“What are you, jealous?”

Mac watches Dennis exhale smoke, how her lips form a perfect O when she breathes out rings. She’s showing off.

“No.”

Dennis rolls her eyes.

“No, you know what?” says Dennis, and Mac groans out loud. She does _not_ like the knowing glint that comes into Dennis’s eye, like she’s got Mac figured all the way out. Not that there’s anything to figure out, anyway.

“Come on,” says Mac. “There’s nothing—”                                 

“No way, I’m onto you.” Dennis passes the joint back to Mac, possibly just to free her hands to point accusatorily at her. “This goes way beyond the date, man. You’ve been acting like such a bitch toward me ever since I told you I slept with Johnny McNamera at summer camp last year.”

Mac pinches the bridge of her nose. “Um. So?”

She probably should have just denied it and diverted the conversation, because if Dennis was pleased with herself for sussing out Mac’s problem, she looks totally revved up now that it’s been confirmed. Mac hasn’t seen her this excited since she started charging kids to take their SATs for them.

“Mac are you…” she lowers her voice and looks around, even though they’re in Dennis’s parents’ nice basement and nobody else is home since Frank and Barbara took Dee out to dinner for winning something, or losing something, or whatever. Mac doesn’t fucking care. “Are you a _virgin_?”

Mac blushes deep red, and she knows it’s very visible and Dennis is staring right at her so there’s nothing she can even do to hide it. She takes a big hit off the joint and coughs so much that maybe Dennis will be bored by the time she calms down.

She isn’t. “You are, aren’t you? God, Mac. Have you even ever, you know…kissed a boy?”

“Shut up!” says Mac. “Shut up and show some respect for the free weed and just…shut up. I’ve kissed boys. I’ve kissed tons of boys.”

“Uh-huh,” says Dennis. “Sure you have. And I’ve never touched myself.”

Mac chokes. “Jesus Christ, dude!”

Dennis is grinning across at her and doesn’t say a word, just watches Mac blush and flounder like she’s enjoying her discomfort.

“Do you even know how to kiss?” asks Dennis, because she doesn’t know when to stop needling and she knows exactly what buttons to push, she always has. It’s like she spends all day thinking about how to embarrass Mac or throw her off balance. She needs less free time, seriously. Maybe Mac should convince her to start doing her homework.

“Of course I do!”

“Mmhmm, okay big girl. I’m just saying, if you need some help or some pointers or whatever—”

“God, just shut up,” says Mac, her cheeks still bright red but now edging into being for totally different reasons. “What do you want to do, teach me?”

Dennis just looks across at her, bored, and stubs out the roach into the unscrewed peanut jar top that they’re using as an ashtray.

“I have better things to do with my time.”

“No, come on. You’re being a total pain in my ass, acting like you’re so fucking great now that you sleep around. So just show me how and I don’t have to hear you be such a bitch anymore, on your goddamn high horse, ‘cause I can go get guys of my own.”

Dennis pauses for longer than Mac anticipated. She peeks up from where she’s been glaring furiously at her hands in her lap for the last several minutes. Dennis has no expression on her face, but not in the weird, scary way that she gets sometimes.

“Getting dicked down _would_ make you less of an uptight bitch all the time,” Dennis allows. She actually seems to be _thinking about it_ , and for some reason that makes Mac’s stomach feel all weird and uncomfortable, like all those knots have turned into snakes that are fighting to get out through her mouth.

“It hasn’t helped you any,” Mac mutters.

Dennis shoots her a glare. “I’m completely charming, you asshole.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Mac rolls her eyes dramatically. Now that she’s thought about kissing Dennis her skin is crawling weirdly, and she figures maybe it’s the nerves about kissing someone so maybe practice actually _would_ help her be calmer when the right boy does come along. She twists her hands in her lap.

“Come on,” she spits out, when all of her nerves seem to have gathered in her throat and demanded she say _something_. “Kiss me. Or are you scared?”

It’s just the right button to push; it’s one of the only ones Dennis has. She narrows her eyes the way she always does when presented with a challenge, and scoots forward on the floor until their knees are touching. Mac suddenly can’t look Dennis in the face without her stomach starting to churn, more like a swarm of gnats than butterflies.

“Come on,” she says again, only this time she whispers it and Dennis is only inches from her face.

“Fuck you,” Dennis bites out, and then she swoops in and kisses Mac and it’s way softer than Mac would ever imagine Dennis capable of being.

It’s kind of hot in a confusing way. Mac is hesitant at first, trying to figure out what to do with her mouth and her hands, but then Dennis starts massaging at the back of her neck to make her calm down and Mac melts, and starts going with her gut instead of thinking too much about it all. If all kissing is like this, maybe it’s not so bad as she imagined when she laid in bed all those nights thinking about theoretical boyfriends.

Then Dennis’s tongue darts out to lick her top lip, and Mac’s whole body feels like it’s covered in fire ants and the only way to get them off is to crawl into Dennis’s lap and never leave.

Mac was wrong before; if this is what kissing is like, then it’s absolutely _phenomenal_.

“Christ, Dennis,” Mac pants when Dennis finally lets her breathe, but there’s this determined glint in her eye now and Dennis doesn’t give her more than a second to breathe before she’s back on her.

She pushes Mac hard to the floor and climbs on top of her so her thighs bracket Mac’s waist, and she bites hard at Mac’s bottom lip until Mac opens her mouth. Dennis’s tongue feels like a wave crashing against her own, and Mac scrambles helplessly at Dennis’s ribs to anchor her somewhere.

She’s absolutely panting into Dennis’s mouth now, which isn’t hot or dignified but she doesn’t really care since she’s not supposed to be the expert one here anyway. Dennis looks absolutely thrilled with it, and the first time Mac whines out her name, Dennis sucks on Mac’s tongue like it’s the sweetest thing she’s ever tasted. That churning feeling starts back up in Mac’s stomach twice as intensely, vibrating hard against her ribcage.

She realizes she’s shivering when Dennis cards her hands into Mac’s hair and nuzzles her cheek against hers, breathing hard against her jaw and down her neck. Mac isn’t thinking much anymore, so she pauses with her, her trembling fingers digging hard into the sides of Dennis’s thighs and her mouth burning.

Finally Mac unsticks her jaw. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Dennis pulls back to glare at her. “I’m just usually on a bed or something. I have _class_ , you know. The floor is a new surface for me.”

Mac seriously doubts that Dennis even knows what class _is_ , despite living in the upper one for her entire life. She still goes to a shitty public school with kids like Mac. Also, Mac knows for a fact she’s hooked up in a bathroom stall before.

She casts her eyes around the basement. They land on the big suede couch that faces the TV, and Mac jerks her chin towards it.

“What about there? Is that good enough for you, princess?”

Dennis looks over, a considering look passing over her face. After a moment, where Mac feels like all her breath has congregated in her lungs but won’t come up out of her stopped-up air pipe, Dennis climbs off of her and gets to her feet. Mac props herself up on her elbows, brow knitted, suddenly aware when her shirt pulls tights over her chest that her nipples are hard. Whatever, it’s drafty in here, and her bra is thick enough to mostly hide it. Her cheeks still darken just a little.

Dennis leans down and tugs on Mac’s wrist, pulling her up and leading her backwards over to the couch. Grinning at her in a way that makes Mac a little afraid of what’s going on in her head, Dennis shoves her by the shoulders, hard, and Mac lands on her back on the couch with all the breath that had just been trapped in her lungs whooshing out of her at last.

Before Mac can piece back together her brain and say something, Dennis clamors back on top of her and kisses her hard. If Mac didn’t know better, she would even say desperately.

Mac lets Dennis take the lead, because she’s inexperienced and because Dennis will probably take to the role with both pride and enthusiasm. She isn’t wrong; Dennis plants her hands on either side of Mac’s ribs and slides their bodies even closer, rolling her tongue against Mac’s. It makes her honest-to-God moan, and Dennis smiles against her mouth.

“Yeah?” Dennis murmurs, nonsensically.

Mac slides her fingers into Dennis’s hair to the back of her head and cradles her between her hands like she’s something to cherish, an old and priceless treasure. She keeps her close and kisses her once, twice. Her high is starting to hit her hard, and she’s getting lightheaded.

“Yeah,” says Mac, and then she surges up the centimeter she’s made between them and kisses her again, open-mouthed and no tongue, just the press of their lips together again and again and again. This weed is awesome.

Dennis dips her middle down, and Mac spreads her knees so Dennis is nestled right in the cradle of her hips. Dennis drops down to her elbows and caresses the hinge of Mac’s jaw with her thumb, rests the other hand beside the pulse in Mac’s neck so there’s no hiding the way her heart is pounding, the steady _thump thump_ that’s drumming in her blood, from where Dennis’s fist meets Mac’s skin. She takes control again, shifting her head around to get at Mac however she wants, and Mac is just fine with that.

It’s still Mac’s lesson, though. She winds her arms around Dennis’s neck and presses up to roll her tongue against hers like Dennis just did, and Dennis gives back this guttural groan that Mac thinks she can feel down to her fucking toes.

Mac has been fighting with a strange and powerful urge to rub her thighs together, except Dennis is kind of directly in her way. She’s been trying not to think about it, but at that sound Dennis makes when Mac turns her moves back on her, she instinctively digs her nails into Dennis’s waist and pulls her down hard on top her. They give twin, infinitesimal gasps, and they both ignore it.

For a while they just lay there, and make out, and Mac tries as hard as she can to ignore how the way Dennis keeps shifting her hips is making her want to shift right back.

Dennis sits up in the center of Mac’s legs, and Mac straightens out her propped-up knees. Dennis grabs Mac by either side of her unzipped sweatshirt and tugs her up too, biting roughly at her mouth when they meet in the middle. Mac slips her hands over Dennis’s hips, thumbs brushing above the waistband of her jeans. Dennis feels hot under Mac’s hands, her entire body like a flame licking at Mac’s own.

Dennis pushes Mac’s sweatshirt off her shoulders. It pools by her elbows. Mac leans in closer and wraps her arms around Dennis’s waist, her fingers trailing at the small of her back. She can feel Dennis’s heart speeding up like her blood is pulsing in Mac’s own veins, and Mac instinctively spreads her hands out across Dennis’s back, sliding further up under her shirt, just to make her squirm. Dennis leans down and kitten-licks at Mac’s neck, and Mac’s head lolls back without her thinking.

It’s as if they both suddenly realize this is crossing a line, an unspoken rule about this teacher-student thing they’re doing that says this is moving into a completely different territory. They pull away, a little, and draw their hands back into their own laps like the fire Mac was just feeling on Dennis’s skin has turned into a real flame that she can no longer touch.

They’re both still breathing hard, the light sweat on their foreheads mingling together where they’re still pressed close. Mac feels like, even though she was just on them for what seemed like years, she can’t stop staring at Dennis’s lips. They’re like twin ghosts – Mac’s afraid she might get haunted.

“That was, um…good,” Dennis says after a long moment. “You’re gonna be just fine.”

Mac leans back, her brows meeting in the middle. “Huh?”

“With the boys,” says Dennis. She wipes a hand over her face, and Mac can see that it’s shaking. “With – the boys will be all over you.”

“Oh. Um. Thanks. That’s – that’s good.”

“Yeah.”

A door slams upstairs; Dee and her parents must be back. Mac and Dennis look at each other for just a second before they both get up and start their usual routine for when Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds come home: They open up all the windows, turn on the ceiling fan, and toss all the ashes from the jar top out onto the lawn. Mac shoves all the pot and paraphernalia back into her schoolbag.

But the whole rest of the afternoon, when they’re eating dinner later and even while watching a movie with Dee sprawled out on the couch with Dennis and Mac sitting in a chair next to them, Mac’s whole body is shaking.

 It’s fine, though. It’s probably just the teenage hormones.


	2. i hope liquor isn’t the only thing making you warm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls attend a house party. They're really only doing this to make boys want them, they swear.

So, Dennis is fine. Her stomach is churning a little but she figures it’s just from how much jungle juice she’s had already; it’s the high school kind, a conglomeration of all the shit everyone could steal from their parents without getting caught. Dennis will use the bathroom once the line thins out.

She’s been looking for Mac for about ten minutes because they swore they wouldn’t split up tonight, so she’s kind of annoyed that she found her backed up against the fireplace with Johnny McNamara’s tongue down her throat just now. Dennis is happy that their lesson a few weeks ago did something for her, and it’s totally like her to take Dennis’s leftovers, but Dennis’s stomach is churning and Mac just stranded her alone with their shitty classmates so yeah, her happiness for Mac is a little strained. But objectively she’s fine.

She turns around, ready to get way more drunk before she deals with this, but almost immediately bumps into someone and —

“Ow! What the hell, Dee?”

The metal contraption eating Dennis’s twin sister hit her right on the nose. She’s definitely going to bruise. Dennis rubs the spot and glares at Dee at the same time, hoping to convey just how much she doesn’t want to see her right now.

“Oh, Dennis! Hey. I’m crashing.”

“Well, that’s obvious. Who would invite _you_ to a party?”

Dee puts her hands on her hips. “Come on, I know you’re crashing too. Who would invite _you_?”

“I’m popular,” Dennis sniffs. “Whatever, Mac deals to these kids.”

“Ah. So you’re a tagalong friend.”

“What? No, I’m not a—you know what, never mind. Get out of my way, I’m getting more juice.”

Dee puts up her hands.

“Woah. What’s jammed its way up your pussy, dude?” Her eyes drift over Dennis’s shoulder just then, and she raises her eyebrows. Dennis clenches her teeth. When Dee looks back at her, she’s smirking. “Oh, I get it now. Your girlfriend strayed and is totally cheating on you, right in front of you. Right.”

“Shut up! Mac is not my girlfriend.”

“Whatever, Dennis. You two are joined at the hip.”

Dennis rolls her eyes. “With Charlie on the other side, huh?”

Dee grins. “Yeah. Where _is_ Charlie, by the way?”

She looks around like she expects him to jump out of the couch or something.

“He huffed a shit ton of glue and passed out about five seconds into the pregame,” says Dennis, shaking her head. “Bad luck for him, too. That girl from chem is here and he’d have plenty of opportunity to corner her or stalk her or whatever it is he thinks is romantic.”

Dee laughs. “Sucks for him.”

“Yeah,” says Dennis vaguely, attention straying. “Now get out of my way. I need alcohol.”

Dee glances down into the cup in her hand, then shrugs. “I could drink more too.”

They head into the kitchen together, shouldering people out of the way. Dennis has just handed Dee her plastic cup and is dunking her own into the big bin holding all the booze. It’s a weird red color and Dennis tries not to think about how many other people’s hands have been in here.

“Dennis, hey. Where’d you go, man?”

Dennis looks up. Mac is standing there, hands spread out, her hair mussed up and her some of her lipgloss smudged onto her cheek; Dennis can see the glitter. She straightens and sips delicately at her drink.

“Oh, _hi_ Mac. Good to see you’ve resurfaced from sucking off Johnny’s face.”

Mac lights up. “You saw that? Wasn’t I good? I did that thing on the roof of his mouth that you showed me, he loved it.”

“That’s fantastic, Mac,” Dennis says tonelessly. Dee is looking at the two of them with her eyebrows raised, and Dennis tries really hard not to notice. “If you’re done slobbering on my sloppy seconds, come downstairs with me. They’re playing beer pong down there.”

Mac gives her this weird look, but visibly shakes it off. She shrugs. “Okay.”

“Ugh. I can’t play beer pong with this thing on me,” Dee says, gesturing to the monstrous thing holding her back in place. Dennis and Mac both turn to look at her.

“Yeah, well you weren’t invited anyway because me and Dennis are a great team and you can’t play for shit, Dee,” says Mac.

“Seriously, Dee, why would we ever invite you?” asks Dennis. She and Mac grin at each other.

“What are you talking about? I’m great at beer pong!”

“Name _one_ time you’ve won a game, Dee. Just one.”

They both stare at her.

“That’s—it’s—!” Dee rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Later, boners.”

She wanders off back into the living room. Dennis shakes her head and promptly shuts her sister out of her mind. She hands Mac her drink, makes another one for herself, and they head down into the basement together. Mac’s got her arm slung over Dennis’s shoulders and Dennis’s body is warm everywhere they connect.

They have to wait awhile to get a turn, but once they shoulder their way into the tournament, they instantly take over. After about twenty minutes there’s a small gaggle of people cheering them on, and Dennis is drunk enough to start swaying into Mac’s side every time she passes her the ping pong ball.

Mac squints as she lines up her next shot, her tongue poking out of her mouth a little in her concentration. Dennis gets distracted by movement over Mac’s shoulder, and her eyes snag and narrow at Johnny McNamara approaching quietly from behind.

Before Dennis can stop him, Johnny touches Mac’s hips, and she jumps and turns around. She leans back into the table, away from him, but Johnny doesn’t seem to notice.

“Hey, beautiful. Where’d you go?”

“I’ve been around,” says Mac. “Me and Dennis are kicking ass in beer pong.”

He leans in closer to her. Dennis is standing right there, apparently fucking invisible, so she can hear every word he whispers into Mac’s ear anyway.

“Wanna come upstairs with me? There are still a few empty bedrooms left.”

Mac squints at him. “I’m right in the middle of a game,” she says, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. “We’re way ahead.”

“Come on.” Johnny tugs lightly at her hips, and Mac shoots Dennis a startled look to the side. “It will be more fun up there with me.”

Dennis clears her throat. “What are you doing, man? We’re right in the middle of a game.”

Johnny looks at her like he’s just now seeing her for the first time. “Back off, Reynolds. Go play with your sister or something. This is between me and Ronnie; it doesn’t concern you.”

“Actually, it does,” says Dennis, while beside her Mac bristles at her nickname. “You’re trying to take away my best pong partner. And we’re about to win the cup.”

The cup in question is a giant beer that the winners of the tournament split. Her stomach is roiling with jungle juice again and she desperately wants the bitter taste of beer to wash her system out.

“Give us a few minutes,” says Mac. She puts her hands on Johnny’s chest, pushing him away. “Maybe I’ll be up later. I’m doing something.”

Johnny looks between them. He finally takes his hands off Mac’s hips.

“Whatever,” he says. He throws up his hands and – finally – walks away.

“What the hell was that?” says Mac, turning back to the table. She makes her shot, and it lands in a cup without hitting the rim. The other team is down to one now. “What kind of person interrupts someone when they’re busy?”

Dennis doesn’t answer. Her gut is starting to settle, and she doesn’t want to jinx it.

 

When they win, the people watching them cheer and circle in to clap Dennis and Mac on their backs; even the team they beat out for the cup shake their hands graciously. Mac chugs half the big beer and passes it off to Dennis, swiping her sleeve across her mouth. When Dennis slams it down after finishing her half, she grabs Mac’s wrist and tugs her across the basement closer to the pumping stereo, where a few people are bopping inexpertly to the beat.

Mac’s drunk enough that she keeps bumping into Dennis with wildish moves, and Dennis is drunk enough that she doesn’t really care. She just keeps laughing and gently pushing Mac away so that she spins and sways, usually unsteady enough to bump right into Dennis again. Dennis grabs her wrists to stop her from hitting Dennis in the face, and they both grin, lazy but happy.

Across the room, Dennis sees Johnny McNamara descending the stairs. He scans the crowd and makes eye contact with Dennis; then like he never saw her, he goes and starts talking to this girl on the cheerleading team instead. Dennis curls her lip at the whole display, the obvious and idiotic move boys make to get girls jealous. It’s so stupid.

Mac will probably fall for it.

She spins Mac around where she’s half-grinding up on Dennis and sees the second she spots Johnny, because her face lights up. Then she must see the cheerleader, because her face falls.

“Why is he talking to her?” Mac has to shout to be heard. “He was just all over me.”

Dennis pushes some of Mac’s hair back behind her ear so she can lean in and be heard over the music.

“He’s being a dick,” says Dennis. “He’s just trying to get you to go over there, he’s mad you turned him down earlier.”

Mac frowns. “Should I go talk to him? You’re the boy expert.”

“No, that will make you look desperate.” She thinks for a second, then snaps her fingers and grins. “I know what will make you totally hot for him.”

“What are you talking about? I _am_ hot for him.”

Dennis rolls her eyes.

“You can make him even hotter for you,” she explains, slipping her arms over Mac’s shoulders and shifting her body closer. Mac’s exhale is shuddery against Dennis’s cheek, and Dennis smirks at her. “Nothing makes a guy want a girl more than seeing her with another girl. Right?”

“But he already wants to bang me,” says Mac, blinking at her. “I mean…he did, anyway. You really think dancing with you will give me back the power?”

“Oh, yeah. Not just dancing, Mac, I mean – kissing, too. Mostly the kissing thing. And you’ll look way cooler too,” Dennis says, nodding sagely.

Mac, her eyes wide now, looks over her shoulder again, toward whatever Johnny is doing.

“Well…”

Mac licks her lips. Dennis sees her eyes dart down to Dennis’s own, and her smile widens. Her blood is buzzing in her veins and she feels like the Cheshire Cat, only way better at tempting people into doing whatever she wants.

“Well…that sounds smart,” Mac says. “Um. But what about you?”

“After this, I’ll have my pick of any guy here,” says Dennis. _Obviously_. “They’ll be fighting to get at me. Which is too bad for them, because I’ve already picked who’s gonna get the honor.”

She nods her head toward a boy talking to some friends on the other side of the basement. He’s tall, fit, on the football team, and a year older than them – he’s the perfect fit for her, at least for tonight.

Mac looks back at her, nodding.

“Drew? Nice, nice,” she says. “Good pick, dude. A sports player – you can’t get better than that.”

“I know,” says Dennis smugly. “So…”

She arches both her eyebrows. Mac looks back at her, mouth softly parted.

“I…”

“Relax,” says Dennis. She shimmies even closer to Mac and then stops, running her hands up and down her arms. They’re close enough that she can _feel_ it when Mac shivers.

“Come on,” Dennis whispers, their faces an inch apart. “Don’t be a pussy. Besides,” she says, and she steps impossibly closer, their whole bodies pressed together and Mac is breathing hard near Dennis’s ear, “I _know_ you look hot when you kiss.”

Dennis pulls back just far enough to see Mac’s face; her lips are parted, her eyes are wide and dark. Dennis’s breath catches in her throat. Mac pauses. Dennis’s throat feels dry – but then Mac licks her lips, and before Dennis’s stomach even has a chance to fully drop, Mac leans in and kisses her – hard, messy, and shamelessly hot as all hell.

Dennis immediately grabs her by the shoulders and kisses her just as intensely back. It feels like there’s some feral thing clawing at her insides, like it’s trying to force its way out of Dennis’s stomach and crawl into Mac’s, and Dennis is doing all she can to let it.

Mac tilts her head, grabbing aimlessly at Dennis’s cheek to guide their mouths back together when the distance gets too far. Dennis threads her fingers through Mac’s and curls their joined hands by her waist, flicking out her tongue at the same time into Mac’s mouth and Mac sucks on it, a good student just as ever.

Dennis moans softly and kisses her harder, pressing their lips almost roughly together. She doesn’t want to hurt either of them, doesn’t even intend to get rough, she just has a subconscious need to get _closer_ — Mac makes a quiet noise and untwines their fingers just to dig her own into Dennis’s hipbone. Dennis presses her newly freed ones back into Mac’s hair and twists them there, keeping her close when she runs her tongue against Mac’s and then presses gentle kisses to her red, ajar lips, soft until Mac tugs her in close and with a gasp kisses her hard, open-mouthed, her tongue a wild thing against Dennis’s. Their hips are hard against each other, never moving far but demanding nonetheless as they dance gracelessly to the beat.

Dennis leans away to breathe and presses her lips against Mac’s throat, tracking soft kisses there. Mac tilts back her head and breathes Dennis’s name up toward the ceiling.

Dennis bites down gently on her earlobe. She wants to tell Mac how hot she is but doesn’t, letting the words run down through her blood instead. She bites less gently at Mac’s pulse, which is racing against Dennis’s lips. Dennis struggles not to suck right there; she has no right, and she isn’t sure she’ll want to think about this every time she sees Mac for the rest of the week anyway. This feeling in her gut is good for now.

She lets herself run gentle knuckles across Mac’s cheek. Mac is warm, so warm. Being near her feels like Dennis has wrapped herself in a big thick blanket on the softest bed in the world, and she doesn’t really want to crawl out.

“C’mere,” she growls after a minute, and she pulls Mac back into her.

Mac opens up against her kiss like she’s been doing it forever, and Dennis thinks briefly that she may be the only thing that Mac has ever blindly trusted. She feels wild with the knowledge, confused and thrown off – she’s so rarely encountered something so unexpected as to knock her breathless, but here Mac is anyway. Here Mac has always been.

Mac tastes like the cherry lipgloss she’s wearing and the jungle juice they’ve had, and God, Dennis can’t believe she’s tasting the inside of Mac’s _mouth_. She can’t believe that it still doesn’t feel like enough. She moves to run her nails up Mac’s spine but then halts abruptly before her fingers can breach more than an inch or two up her shirt. Dennis pulls back, wondering what the fuck she’s doing, wondering where the hell her head is. Her hand hovers, stalled and confused, just above Mac’s ass, and she’s hyper-aware of it all of a sudden. She swallows.

Mac, not following her train of thought at all, kisses across Dennis’s cheek and latches onto a bit of skin on the side of her neck. It happens to be a very sensitive spot on her, and Dennis moans instinctively and presses her hips towards Mac’s, her eyes drifting shut. She tries to remember what she was just thinking about.

“It’s working,” Mac whispers, but Dennis has no idea what she’s talking about. She kisses her again, blindly. When she runs her fingertips up Mac’s ribs, over her t-shirt just to be safe, Mac shivers.

Mac’s still not that good at kissing, but it’s not so bad when she’s not thinking with her head and just going with how she feels. Dennis, ever the eager teacher, coaxes Mac into a wet rhythm with their tongues and starts grinding against her to the same beat, rocking their hips together to it and then pressing her knee in between Mac’s legs to get closer. Mac starts to get it after a few long moments, and Dennis pulls her mouth away to breathe raggedly by her ear. It’s easier to focus on all the places they’re touching now. It’s the only thing she can think about.

Mac seems to protest this halt. She winds her arms around Dennis’s neck, nearly riding her thigh where she’s grinding down on it, and Dennis has no idea where she got so good at dancing. Actually, it’s not good so much as plain slutty, which honestly is the same thing most of the time.

After a minute, Mac nudges Dennis’s chin up and guides their mouths together again, much more softly than before. Tentatively, Dennis kisses her back.

Mac’s entire body is hot against Dennis’s and she doesn’t know whether she herself is burning up from her own fire-blood or if she’s catching Mac’s fever; either way, she constantly feels three seconds from going up in smoke. She wonders if this is what it’s like, kissing somebody you know inside and out. It’s strange to learn new things about someone you thought you already had down pat.

When Dennis stops to breathe again, Mac uses the hands on her hips to turn her around and keep dancing. Dennis leans her weight back into Mac, feeling for the first time how truly drunk she is. Every muscle is loose, all her nerves screaming out to dance and touch and be touched.

She grinds back without finesse, barely keeping up the rhythm of the music; Mac doesn’t seem to mind. Instead, she matches Dennis’s pace rather than the one of the song and dances back as messily, as fearlessly. Dennis tips her head back onto Mac’s shoulder, her eyes closing, her lips parting. Mac’s cheek nudges closer.

“Mm, you dance good,” Mac mumbles by her ear.

Dennis’s blood flushes warmer, though she makes no indication that she hears her except to pull at Mac’s wrists and wind her arms around Dennis’s waist.

Mac makes a low, unidentifiable sound deep in her throat. She presses her lips to the side of Dennis’s neck, soft and tentatively at first.

Dennis isn’t in the mood for Mac to be hesitant. She isn’t in the mood to have either of them waste time _thinking_ when that’s only ever led to trouble. She tilts her head more to the side, exposing her throat for Mac’s mouth, and reaches back to slide one hand into Mac’s hair.

Mac leans in more confidently now, kissing open-mouthed at Dennis’s throat, sucking gently at her pulse point. Dennis twists her fingers into Mac’s hair and rocks back into the cradle of her hips at something like the same pace of Mac’s mouth on her skin. It’s a strange rush of a feeling, like her entire world-view has been narrowed down to Mac’s lips on her neck and she can’t stop rocking her body no matter how hard she tries.

She looks up finally; Drew is watching them with heavy-lidded eyes, and Dennis grins at him, lazy, and pulls her bottom lip in between her teeth without breaking eye contact. Johnny McNamara is talking to some other girl but glancing at them too, from the corner of his eye every couple of seconds, like he can’t make himself look away.

Dennis – well, she loves to be the center of a show.

She pulls on Mac’s hair, tipping her head back onto her shoulder again and guiding her mouth back to Dennis’s own. In the few seconds her eyes are open, right before their lips touch, Dennis can see how red Mac’s cheeks and neck are, flushed from drinking and the tight press of their bodies in a nearly-airless basement. She thinks it’s why her own face is blushing, it’s why her heart is in her throat.

Mac’s lips are wet and Dennis doesn’t care, not when Mac is panting hard and trying to kiss her deep and dirty at the same time, not when one of Mac’s hands is sliding as though by some mutinous outside force across Dennis’s jeans. Dennis groans and arches her hips out toward her hand, not meaning to do it but unable to help herself – Mac curls her fingers right at the indentation at the top of Dennis’s thigh and Dennis thinks how she can’t wait until someone – anyone – who did she pick for the night again? – until Drew is on top of her and touching her more than just through her jeans. Dennis doesn’t see the noise she makes coming until it’s loud in the air, swallowed up quickly by the music but even faster by Mac’s mouth.

Dennis spins around in the circle of Mac’s arms and kisses her hard, still dancing with her but pressed closer than before. She half-hitches her thigh up on Mac’s hip, like she’s going to wind it around her completely, but the angle is off and she plants her feet again instead. She feels wild, out of control, the type of feeling that makes her head spin but instead of wanting to stop and collect her bearings, she finds herself wishing she could be eaten up entirely and consumed until there’s nothing left of her.

Mac is kissing her like she wants the same, like she wants to swallow Dennis whole and spit her back out so she doesn’t have to see her go. Dennis’s head is spinning and Mac is the only anchor in the entire world, she’s tethering Dennis’s hands to something solid and keeping her feet on the floor instead of floating clean away. She’s a focus point for Dennis’s mind, too, isn’t making her want to run until that out-of-control feeling goes away, but instead is keeping her grounded and steady and Dennis wants to fall forward, not back.

Dennis’s hands reach, slide from the perfect wave of Mac’s curves down to her waist. She anchors a few fingers through the belt loops on Mac’s jeans, both her hands devoted to keeping Mac crushed against her. Mac is starting to taste different, not like cherry and jungle juice, but almost like nothing at all.

Dennis thinks, fleetingly – just for a moment, less than a second, it doesn’t even count or mean anything – about sliding her hands down even further, and seeing what sounds Mac makes then.

Someone touches Dennis’s shoulder. Dennis startles, Mac’s tooth scraping roughly against her lip when she pulls away. Dennis blinks, and the world shimmers back down around her as she descends from the clouds.

The basement looks red and dark and strange, nothing like the pulsing possibility it did before. A cold tendril of some unpleasant feeling winds its way down Dennis’s stomach.

“Hey.” It’s Drew, smiling crookedly at her. Mac’s hands fall away from Dennis. Dennis blinks a few more times.

“Hey,” she returns, not quite at her usual pitch or charm. She sounds unsteady.

“You look hot,” says Drew, leaning in closer. Instinctively, Dennis inclines her head closer. Behind Drew, she can see Johnny McNamara approaching, and like she can feel him, Mac turns around to watch him come.

“Thanks,” says Dennis, looking back at Drew and keeping her gaze there. She touches his arm, feels him flex underneath her palm. “Is it warm down here? Do you want to go talk upstairs?”

Drew grins. “Yeah.”

Dennis turns, goes to tell Mac that she’s leaving now and she’ll see her later so they can grab a ride home together. Mac, though, has already got her arms slung around Johnny’s neck and they’re kissing. Dennis closes her mouth. Drew takes her hand.

Dennis looks back, though, from the top of the stairs. She can’t seem to help herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *screams for a thousand years* GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER MACDEN
> 
> [still lesbianfreyja on tumblr](http://lesbianfreyja.tumblr.com/post/170386363920)
> 
> thanks yall for reading! writing this was fun xo


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